Genocide has struck many victims over the past 65 years: European Jews during World War II, Cambodians in the late 1970s and Rwandans in 1994.
There may be a new addition: The black African tribes of Darfur Province in western Sudan have faced murder, displacement, pillage, razing of villages and other crimes by Arab militias known as janjaweed.
The dictionary defines genocide as "the systematic killing of a racial or cultural group." The US government is reviewing whether Darfur qualifies for the designation.
"The janjaweed are the government's militia, and Khartoum has armed and empowered it to conduct `ethnic cleansing' in Darfur," Human Rights Watch said.
The Brussels-based International Crisis Group says Darfur can "easily become as deadly" as the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Then, soldiers, militiamen and civilians of the Hutu majority killed more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in 100 days.
All along, Sudan has denied allegations of complicity with the Arab militias and has blamed rebels for rights violations.
In February last year, the Zaghawa, Fur and Masalit black tribes rebelled against what they regarded as unjust treatment by the Sudanese government in their historic struggle over land and resources with their Arab countrymen.
Countless thousands of tribesmen have died in a brutal counterinsurgency. The conflict has uprooted more than 1 million people, and the US government believes this many could die unless a peace settlement is reached and relief supply deliveries are greatly accelerated. Sudanese cooperation has been limited but is improving.
The Muslim-versus-Muslim conflict is separate from the 21-year war between ethnic Arab Muslim militants in northern Sudan and the black African non-Muslim south. That three-decade-long struggle may be ending thanks to peace accords signed last month.
A US interagency review is aimed at judging whether the Darfur tragedy qualifies as genocide under a 1946 international convention that outlaws the practice.
"I believe what is occurring in Sudan approaches the level of genocide," said Jim Kolbe, a US Republican lawmaker. He and several colleagues are pushing for US$95 million in emergency assistance for Darfur's victims.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, says Washington could increase the pressure on the Sudanese government by issuing a "stern warning" that, in the US view, it is "close to if not bordering on genocide."
This would greatly impact on international public opinion, Hier said, founder and dean of the center.
Mark Schneider, a vice president of the International Crisis Group, says Hier may have a point. He also said a genocide designation by the US could thrust the UN Security Council into prolonged debate, deflecting attention from Darfur's massive humanitarian needs.
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